“Fiber to the curb” (FTTC) refers to the deployment of broadband optical communications fibers from a central office or a regional switch location to locations reasonably close to but not within customer premises. For example, a telecommunications or other network utilizing FTTC might feature optical fiber placed within the utility easement along the streets or sidewalks outside of customer premises. Typically, another medium such as coaxial cable or twisted-pair wires is used to carry communications signals from the optical fiber network the short distance between the curb and customer owned devices or customer managed networks inside nearby home or business premises.
The optical fiber backbone of an FTTC implementation can carry telephone signals, television signals, on-demand media, high-bandwidth data signals and other digital signals. Unfortunately, many existing conduits from the curb to the customer such as twisted-pair telephone wires have dramatically less capacity than the optical fiber at the curb. This imbalance results in significantly reduced bandwidth and performance at the customer premises. Higher bandwidth links between each customer and the curb, for example, dedicated lateral fiber optic lines, can be too expensive for reasonable implementation and involve significant retrofit costs to update existing wires. These issues, and others, compromise a provider's ability to effectively implement FTTC signal distribution networks. Hence, there is a need for solutions that can overcome the technical hurdles of relatively inexpensively and conveniently conveying high-bandwidth communications signals from an optical fiber “at the curb” (or otherwise near multiple customer premises) to communications devices or networks located within the customer premises.